zoloft and OCD

hi. i have been told that the antidepressent zoloft can help control OCD symptoms. i myself have never noticed any effects good or bad from taking zoloft. my OCD doesn't seem to be controlled by anything.

does anyone know of any psych meds which control OCD? i myself have never heard of any.

any info is greatly appreciated.

Yes! I know. Really high doses of SSRIs, like Zoloft, lexapro, luvox and others I'm sure.
I was on all three (not at the same time). That and I worked with a therapist who specialized in OCD. He did "Value Based" therapy and "ERT"--exposure response therapy.
The combo of the SSRI, value based therapy and exposure work really, really helped my germ phobia behaviors.
I got a lot better. This T moved to another city and then so did I or I might be great by now.
Also, I didn't like the side-effects of the SSRIs, so I stopped taking them.
My OCD is slowly getting worse again, so that tells me the meds, the therapy, or both were working.

hi philbee,

as far as I know, which is not all that far, the meds for OCD as just as Lbien said -- SSRI in high doses. Like the "standard" prozac dosage for depression is 20mg, and I take 40.

I also heard that you aren't supposed to see gradual improvement with higher dosages. For example, if you take 20, you won't find that your OCD gets half as much better than if you take 40. There is some kind of threshold. But I heard this from someone who said they were a psychiatrist on another message board, so I don't know how true it is.

I started out on Zoloft but the side effects were killing me -- I was really, really, really sleepy, all the time. For me the side effects of Prozac are a lot less and my OCD is a lot better. not 100% gone, but life is a lot easier. Well, I should say it's a lot different. Anyway, it's less OCD.

e

i've been on zoloft for like ages. i'll have to ask my psychiatrist about the beneficial effects (or lack thereof) of zoloft as a possible treatment for OCD.

i suppose it is possible the OCD could be far worse without zoloft. i've tried getting off zoloft once and switching totally to wellbutrin, and the side effects nearly ended me up in the hospital. so good or bad, i'll more than likely be on zoloft for the rest of my life. it would be nice if it could help with OCD, but i am extremely sensitive to zoloft, and i don't know if raising my current dose of 200mg per day would be wise.

My pdoc told me that zoloft can help with OCD symptoms. Increasing my dosage helped me.

When I took the highest amount I could of zoloft for treatment of OCD, it was added to Wellbutrin XL (different than wellbutrin w/o XL in name--wellbutrin w/o XL in name--sent me into the hospital. Philbee--is this the type of wellbutrin you took?)
Anyway, I was on highest possible dose of Wellbutrin XL 450mg for depression and then my pdoc added the highest dose of Zoloft. It helped a lot.

i found that Luvox helped me the most. I was on it for three years and have siince weened off of it with very little recurrence of ocd symptoms

hope this helps,
Love and Hugs,
Tara

yes, it was wellbutrin xl. i was taken off the wellbutrin XL since my psychiatrist felt being on two antidepressents was overkill.

Hi, Was just wondering im taking paxil, they said luvox was better just wondering??

I started taking zoloft about a month ago(50 mg) and I do notice some difference in my anxiety and ocd (oh yeah and pmdd) Id like to ask doc for a higher dose, I can see how it would be helpfull. I also currently take wellbutrin sr 300 mg pday. Id like to quit that now that zoloft has kicked in.

I haven't been diagnosed with OCD but score consistantly very high on it. I have been taking zoloft for a few weeks & have noticed a mild decrease in the symptoms according to the data. It's hardly scientific & is only one data point right now but it's a start.

It's hard for me to tell if it's PTSD causing me to show OCD symptoms, since most of the things I'm obsessive about are correlated to traumatic personal events, or if it's possibly OCD making PTSD symptoms worse.

I'm not sure which is the cause & which is the effect

In my experiance zoloft was the worst thing for my OCD. But it all depends on the person I guess. As far as knowing any other OCD treatment, I don't know of any.

Zoloft plus therapy is what helped me, but as I'm sure you know medss work differently on everyone.

Good luck